Sure chicken stock can support growth of botulism. Any low acid food can, and meat and meat broths are low acid. I think everyone goes through that 'scared' to eat it phase. Especially so if they haven't watched an experienced canner a few times do a certain product. The first time I made saurkraut, and the fermentation started I freaked out. Nothing smelling that bad could surely be edible. I talked it over with a couple of experienced kraut makers, and even had one go down and inspect my 'work in progress' and guess what, when it was done.......it was so good. Try to keep things in perspective. If you use a method you know is current and safe, and you followed directions, and the product sealed well you are probably just fine. If you have any doubts whatsoever when it comes time to eat it, follow common sense. If it smells off, doesn't look right, is growing something, or the lid pops off like an explosion when you open it, for pity's sake don't even smell it. Dispose of it safely. If it looks fine and you still have doubts, heat it to the boiling point for twenty minutes. That will kill the bacteria and break down the toxins. I have read the stats on botulism poisoning each year at the CDC websites. If you disregard the cases of infant botulism and wound botulism there are relatively few cases of it from food consumption considering the amount of food preserved annually in this country. That's not going to help you if you are one of the cases, though, is it? In my case the only time I was concerned was when I canned up a huge surplus of potatoes in a good gardening year. Even commercially canned spuds will sometimes get cloudy liquid from the potatoes disintegrating in the heating process.......but it turned me off. I think I pitched them, and am really sure in retrospect they were probably wonderful and safe. I followed the directions to the T.

Charliedawg - that was funny about the toilets. I went yesterday with the builder to pick out the faucets and we ended up at Lowes. I talked the guy into giving us a discount on one of them because they had it marked two different prices. Then I asked him if he was giving us a 10% discount for buying so much stuff as we were. When the guy walked off to adjust the price the builder looked at me and said "I need to bring you shopping with me more often". LOL! We ended up not getting the Roman Tub faucet because I ran out to the car and looked it up on Ebay and I got it for $75 rather then $178! I was happy :-) I had planned on buying all of them on Ebay but we needed these ASAP. Anyway, seems things are really picking up and I LOVE it! I hope we are able to get most of the things picked out in the next week as DH will be gone and I (keeping fingers crossed) could be starting a new job in the next two weeks!!!! I am off to buy birthday presents. DD is turning 8 on Saturday and we are having a water slide party. DD invited the whole class and I am thinking holiday weekend, half the class will show up. NO!! They are all coming but ONE! I will need to have my head examined shortly. Kelly

Yes, I think that a so-called furnace serviceman tried to con me into a new furnace one time. I had a gas furnace that had given 10 years of trouble free service, but had become unrelaible because the pilot light began to go out. I saw an ad in the newspaper from a local dealer that advertized 'free' furnace inspection. They were looking to book work suposedly where needed. it was a established dealer. I bit. I made arrangements for the inspection. The serviceman informed me that the heat exchanger probably was cracked and fan was blowing out the light. He said that my furnace was bad and needed replacing. It was true that my furnace had come from a batch in which the heat exchanger did crack in a few, but his story was suspicious. If the fan was blowing the pilot light out, the light would not have stayed lit for 2 to 3 days. I asked if there was a way to inspect the heat exchanger. I was there when he did the work and I knew he had not seen my heat exhanger - it was not visable. To see it, one had to dissemble the outer shrouding. I had looked at that possibility before and decided it was a big job and that an expert coujld do it faster than me. He said, yes, he could gain a view of the heat echanger by cutting a big hole in the outer covering. (Yeah right, cut a big hole that could ruin the furnace.) Before I permitted him tp cut open the furnace, I asked how he would close it up afterward. He mumbled something and essentially said that I could patch it. (My suspicious mind hoisted a big red flag. Either this guy did not know how to do the job, maybe was mystified, or was bent on making a big mess out of my fuenace.) I said no, I needed to think about it a bit and he went on his way. I had tried replacing the thermocuple to no effect. It seemed that the thermocouple was not getting enough heat and allowed the valve solenoid to drop out. I had tried to adjust the size of the pilot light and found that I could not make it any larger. There was an adjustment on the gas valve to set the flame size, but the flame could not be made bigger. I shut the gas off and began to search for the problem and found it. Inside the fitting that held the pilot jet was another restrictor in the form of a disk with a small hole. Its purpose was to limit the maximum size of the pilot flame. Over the years, deposits had built up nearly closed the hole. The orifice was carefully cleaned, parts reassenblied and eveything worked fine. That was over 10 years ago, and all is well to date. I concluded that the 'inspector' was either a con man or did know know his business. Anyone familar with gas furnaces should have suspected what the problem might have been.

Thanks folks, I have a sack of about 10 different 1/4 yd cuts that I've bought/ordered/lived with. I had them all up for varying lengths of time from hours to overnight to days. Hubby is sooooooo over it. Every time I tried a bright color it just looked off to me. Once I put a big, bold pattern in it just clicked better. I actually really like the same pattern in blue over the sink, but when it's in the eating area it's not quite right. So essentially I think I'm ready to go neurotic but not quite certifiable crazy yet. I'm going to accessorize with a lot of blue but if I decide to go back to red or yellow or orange in the future, a can of spray paint solves the issue. This thread has also made me love suzani now. :) The eyebrow comment is valid and definitely makes me think. I've got one more fabric store to visit today, but at that point I think I have to make a call of some kind. I could put this off for months if I let myself.